Seven Ways to Increase Your Followers on Pinterest [Infographic]

Pinterest recently emerged as one of the top social networks. Indeed, recent studies indicate that Pinterest is on the grow and refers lots of traffic — particularly to retail sites. In fact, nearly 50 percent of online shoppers have made purchases based on a Pinterest recommendation.

Yes, Pinterest is becoming increasingly important. With this in mind, the folks at web hosting service WhoIsHostingThis put together a helpful infographic with tips for increasing your following on Pinterest without having to sink an entire day doing it.

Here are the highlights.

Perfect your profile. Use your real name or the name of your business and include a link to your website. Include a profile photo but don’t use an icon or logo. People are more likely to follow a real person, so use a headshot instead.

Share. A lot. With every pin the site will ask if you’re interested in following another board with the same image. This feature can be used to find and pin more images. This works in reverse as well, so make sure you’re pinning high quality images.

Be active. Follow people with similar interests and comment on images you find interesting. Of course, the caveat is that too many comments in a single day could get you marked as spam. Be prudent and insightful.

Use other platforms. Part of the beauty of Pinterest is that you can connect your other social profiles. Tweeting and sharing your pins on Facebook could be a great way to generate more followers.

Promote your boards. Organize your boards so that the most popular are at the top. Then invite your followers to contribute. This will expose you to a wider audience and increase the possibility of your content being re-pinned.

Host a contest. Make following you a requirement to qualify for the prize. You also want to make the prize proportionate to the amount of effort required to entire the contest.

Find out what’s popular. Pinterest makes it pretty easy to find out what your popular posts are. Track your content and then give your followers more of what they like.